Zootopia: A History
by Kfhlhckvifkbduvl
Summary: My version of Zootopia's history, focusing on unexplored districts, ancient traditions and unseen Familie (birds and reptiles). Collars, the history of interspeciesism and Zootopia's place on the global stage await! Context for my other fic Damn Tourists
1. Chapter 1

**OK, so I figure it's world building/ context time. For those of you who don't know me, hi!These are just brief overviews of the new locations I've added in my fic Damn Tourists; you don't need to read them for the story, but the info's here if you're interested. I am working on the next chapter as we speak. As always, please review. Too much? Too little? Too garbled? Thanks!**

 **THE NOX (NOCTURNAL DISTRICT)**

 **THE TRASH HEAP OF TOMORROW**

The Nox, or Nocturnal District, to give it its full name, has a short but troubled history characterised by political strife. It is essentially one massive cave underneath Downtown (it is often nicknamed the Down Town), with simulation trees, acting as pillars, reaching down to the floor. Open water pipes dot the cave walls and empty out into a moat ringing the disrtict. The only point of ingress or egress is a single tunnel that branches out to exits in Tundra Town, Sahara Square, Savannah Central, the Medowlands and the Rainforest District.

The most interesting architectural feature of the district is its upsidedown villages, hanging from the ceiling like stalectites. These homes, long abandoned today, were designed to accomodate bats. The simulation tree pillars were not originally intended as housing, but as the districts' population has grown in the last thirty or so years, more and more blocks have been added on top of the apartment buildings at thier bases. The trees are now the structural backbone of a jenga tower of apartments. A now defunct monorail connects each tree in the dead centre of thier trunks. The only way of telling night from day is through a giant mechanical clock face bolted to the wall above the entrance tunnel. it was vandalised in the Wing Riots of 1978 as an act of defiance to City Hall, and has yet to be fixed.

The Nox's 'ceiling' is hidden by a network of piping; this is part of the city's Climate Control Hub, which the disrtict is directly below.

 **EARLY HISTORY: MONSTERS OF THE NIGHT**

The Nox is one of Zootopia's more comparatively modern districts. Unlike the rest of the city, which spread from a watering hole during the early revolutionary period and eventually intersected with what is now Little Rodentia, the Nox was constructed during the early 20th century to accomodate the city's growing population of nocturnal imigrants. The reason for such a massive upsurge in immigration was simple; during the Boom period of the 1920s employers had an extended love affair with this newly emergant workforce, who gladly worked all the ungodly hours day-walking mamals had to be coerced into putting up with. Thus employers began doing all they could to attract them. The clock previously mentioned was even built with special alarms for when shifts started and ended to 'encourage' workers.

Many mammals did not apreciate these little-seen creatures of the night waltzing in and taking what they saw as thier jobs. This, combined with the Nocturnals' 'shifty' tendancy to keep to the shadows, and the frankly odd appearance of many of them, led to tension between Nox residents and the rest of Zootopia.

Predators took advantage of the district's natural seclusion and plethora of hidey-holes, using it as a base for the Uncollared movement. Indeed, it was in the dark alleys of the Nox that the first successsful amateur collar removals took place. As a result the Nox was the site of a kind of Cold War between the ZPD and the Uncollared movement; the prior swamping the district with extra patrols and even building two new (now abandoned) precincts - 12a and 12b - just for the district. Although niether the Nocturnals, nor the Uncollared movement, ever did anything the validate a connection between them (in fact the violent crimes its more extreme, anarchist factions committed made the Uncollared movement unpopular in the Nox), rumors persisted, giving Zootopia's prey community another reason to mistrust the disrict. Some outspoken individuals even suggested the Nocturnal workers were 'scouts', and precursors to an anti-prey revolution.

Crime figures of the time show a spike in workplace disturbances during evening shift changes, as the day shifts clashed with the night. The ZPD, moral credibility already in tatters after the corruption of the bootlegging era, spared the Nocturnals little sympathy. By 1935, the middle of the Great Depression (which the Nox was relatively unaffected by, provoking more resentment), the ZPD had a special hotline for Nox-related incidents. Many officers filed official complaints about the extended shifts and unpaid overtime employed to fight the problem.

 **WW2**

During the Second World War, the Nocturnals did thier country proud. Many went to work at munitions factories, adopting the now famous 'Tag-Team' tecnique while working with day-walkers: As the demand for weapons got worse, workers created improvised barracks in the factories. Each day-walker was allocated a nocturnal partner. During week long 'bullet rushes' the workers slept in the factories. The system was for the daywalker to complete his shift, then to wake his nocturnal partner from the barrcks so he could be replaced. They alternated sleeping and working like so. This extended, close-quarters interaction broke down many barriers, and is largely credited with the cooling of racial tension between the two groups after the war ended.

The Nocturnals who went to fight were not placed in the standard army. Rather, they became members of the airforce (mainly bats) or were assigned to special branch of black ops. Nocturnals gained a reputation as being sneaky and dishonest; many soldiers didn't approve of the 'coward's' tactics the black ops employed, and the Nocturnals' segregation from the regular ranks gave them no opportunity to argue the point. After the war many of the Black ops members were recognised with honours and medals, but the general mood amongst them was negative. Many hated that they'd been forced to do the government's 'dirty work' instead of being honest soldiers because of thier species.

 **PARTY ALL NIGHT MEANS AS LONG AS YOU WANT**

After the war, the Nox experienced an economic Boom and a burst of popularity as a nightlife hotspot. Collars finally becoming outlawed in the late 1940s dissolved the pred/prey tension too, though we know now some of the more violent gangs only went into a state of hybernation. As a result of this apparent peace, auxilliary precint 12a was shut down to releave stress on ZPD mammalpower.

Zootopians could finally explore and get to know this part of the city in peace. Here was a place where partying all night long meant as long as you wanted, with a population that now provoked more curiosity than hatered. The sexual revolution of the 1960s bolstered this popularity; to the rebellious rock-n'-roll generation the Nox, with its natural seclusion and air of mystery, was a gift they cherished. This may have been when the seeds of the Nox's infamous sex trade were sown, by the officially 'dormant' gangs, to tempt this new, untouched audience.

 **I PREDICT A RIOT**

No exact cause of the now infamous 1978 Wing Riots has been found, but we can identify several contributory factors. The explosion of bird-centred gang violence in Brazil made headlines worldwide, and this, combined with the penguins essentially forcing settlers out of the North Pole for environmental reasons, rekindled predjudices against winged creatiures. Unfortunately, a large portion of the Nox's population were bats.

Bats had always recived the worst of Nocturnal victimisation; at the time of the Nox's construction the Avaries of Brazil were half believed fantasies for most Zootopians, and the Penguin colonies at the North Pole had only been discovered by the Western world at the turn of the last century. This meant the bats (the largest group of nocturnals) were the first winged creatures many Zootopians had met (birds didn't start immigrating to Zootopia until the 1970s). This, combined with bats' prominence as monsters in the 19th century literature many citizens were read as kits, leant them a demonic reputation. The bats were caught up in the resentment against the newly arriving birds in the 70s, who were fleeing the violence in Rio, because of thier wings.

The second reason for the Wing Riots was a war veteran called Lasirus Wayne, still bitter about his treatment during the war, A respected figure in the community because of his heroism, Wayne galvinised the bats and pushed for active protest against this new wave of discrimination. Nearly a thousand bats gathered on the steps of ZPD precinct 12b. The ZPD's attempts to molify the crowd failed, and they were forced to use force. Unbeknownst to the population of the Nox, then-Mayor Groalar had comissioned an ultrasonic riot supression weapon tailored specifically to fight the massive bat population. Unfortunately the officers had never used the weapon before, and instead of incapacitating the bats, the ultrasonic pulses whipped them into a blind fury. Imagine one thousand bats swarming a building at once; windows imploded under the sheer weight of bodies. The police, unused to fighting flying emenies, were ill-equipped to fight back. The subsequent skirmish lasted almost an hour, with police reinforcements being called in and many land-dwelling Nocturnals joining the bats' fight against them. The riot spread, and by the end of the night an offical state of emergency was declared.

The fallout of the Wing Riots was catastrophic and Mayor Gloalar faced a public inquiry about authorising the creation of the ultrasonic weapon without notifying the public. Today the trial is considered a mockery of the justice system; Groalar got off scott free and even managed to convince the jury that the weapon, and other, further measures, were absolutely necessary by using the riots as evidence.

Meanwhile, in the Nox things were going from bad to worse. The 'hybernating' predator based gangs saw the perfect opportunity to strike, using the chaos in the aftermath of the riots to try and sieze power. Thus began a bloody gang war. Some argue this is the same war that simmers under the surface today, and it may well be true; since the early 1980s there have been no real times of peace in the Nox, the fighting just ebs and flows like the tide. Occasionally there will be a quiet moment, only for things to flame up again, worse than before.

The bats, dismayed to hear Groalar was victorious, took the hint they weren't wanted and abandoned Zootopia for greener pastures. To put that into perspective, almost 40% of the district's poulation abandoned it within a week. Unsurprisingly, its economy crashed.

 **ITS OWN BEAST**

Precinct 12b remains derilict and abandoned to this day; ZPD power is centred in Precinct 12, located not far from the exit tunnel. The cops of Precinct 12 have a reputation for being dirty and overzealous, and rumors circle about possible 'agreements' between the Precinct and several powerful gangs, but the mayors following Groalar have learnt to leave them alone. As the saying goes, the Nox is its own beast.

Today the Nox serves as a refuge for those who have nowhere else to go, and its population consists mainly of the homeless and unemployed, relying on state benifits and whatever they can scrounge to get by. The Nox is a last resort; you can find shelter there, but going down is generally recognised as a one-way trip; employers don't care for those who have spent time in the 'Trash Heap of Tomorrow'.

The sex trade thrives as always, and the Nox has become a kind of safe-haven for the odd and the shunned of the city above. Interspecies bars outnumber the regular kind three to one down there, and many couples risk the dangers to be free in public for a while. Some, especially the young and foolish who don't now any better, see visiting the Nox as a cheap thrill. They do not understand the hold the gangs have over every aspect of life there; protection rackets and drug trafficking abound.

The Nox has no fixed climate; because it lies directly below the main Climate Control Hub a disorienting blend of Zootopia's biomes comes through. It can start one day burning hot as in Sahara Square, and end it so cold the moisture running off the stalegtites freezes solid. Originally the climate was regulated by the Nox's own dedicated system, but with no-one to maintain it it broke down years ago.


	2. Chapter 2

**BIRDS (FAMILY** )

 **BY THE BEATING OF THEIR WINGS**

Birds are something of an oddity in the world of Zootopia. They are, by their nature, notoriously difficult to pin down, travelling the world in great flocks and never remaining in the same place for more than a few months. Thus any historical accounts of their society are also innherently disjointed and discordant: Until the Renissance birds were nothing more than obscure legends for most land-bound mammals.

If records are to be believed, it was the birds, not mammals, who first invented complex language as we know it today (from various calls, songs and beak clicks). Like mammals, each bird species were originally only capable of a limited range of sounds. Unlike early mammals, who got around these problems using written dialect, birds instead grouped around 'translators'; species capable of replicating a wide range of vocalisations from multiple species. Examples include corvids, parrots, bowerbirds and mynas.

These 'translators' duly helped educate those who listened in the ways of other bird species, eventually circulating a widely agreed Common Toungue between them. Today, these 'translators' act as communication links between bird, mammal and reptile at the Interfamilial Congress.

Unlike mammal young, bird eggs are placed in huge, communal aviaries (the locations of which are a closely gaurded secret) where they are incubated and cared for by 'nest-mothers'. Though they have long since evolved past the 'imprinting' instinct, most birds still share an intense emotional connection to thier nest mothers. If a bird wishes to become a nest mother, male or female, it is expected for them to take an oath of celibacy as monks or nuns do, so they can love all thier 'children' equally.

Unsurprisingly, considering thier 'free' perspective on all aspects of life, promiscuity is more common in avian commuities than the mammalian. As a result, many chicks went unclaimed once hatched (particularly cuckoos, who have become folkdevils in both the playground and later life). To fight this problem, it has become standard in recent years for prospective parents to select an unclaimed egg at random and be present for its hatching/imprinting. This has led to some rather odd family units (an emu with robin parents, anyone?) but the bird's 'go-with-the-flow" philosiphy ensures these children are treated relatively equally.

There is no established hierarchy in your common or garden bird flock. Rather, they live in a perpetual state of primitive communism, as mammals did during the stone age. Every species has equal right to speak in flock gatherings, but when it comes down to it avian politics is very simple, and has remained unchanged for millennia: Majority rules. The flock will always act as the majority has voted, no matter what minorities protest or what exceptional circumstances arise. This has drawn criticism from many Family-external critics; they brand the system arachaic and unfair to the under-represented. However, the Family as a whole maintain that introducing loopholes and clauses of the kind found in mammalian law would damage the purity of a system that has kept them in relative peace since the dawn of time.

Other 'problems' with avian society include thier justice system; Bird criminals are subjected to the punishments seen fit by the flock and then let loose on the world. This became a major issue that catalysed the Cartel Wars of the 1970s (see below). It was only after these Wars, and the resulting bloodshed, that the Interfamilial Congress imposed guidelines onto the personal justice of the flocks; the death penalty and torture were expressly banned. Though these punishments were (apparently) rarely administered, these restrictions still outraged many tradditionalists in the avian community.

 **BIRDS OF A FEATHER**

The 'emergance' of birds into the eye of mamalian society varied from continent to continent. In China most birds became Peacekeepers, a passive alternative to the Samauria and Kung-Fu masters that safegaurded the realm. Many artists of the time drew inspiration from the protective wing of the crane, or peaceful sillouette of a dove.

In Britain, avian rights varied wildly. Those birds that roamed the countryside claimed the thickest forests as their own. The monarchs of the Middle Ages have been recorded many times lamenting the problems this caused; many aristocrats saw this as impuning their rights as landlords, and happily shot at the families roosting in thier trees. Pigeons were the most common type of bird in the cities, but thier small stature and unremarkable plumage led to thier general dismissal by the public. For an extended period they formed a large portion of the country's homeless community. When the industrial revolution swept the nation in the Victorian era, many pigeons became messangers and pagers for workhouses and the upper class. Elsewhere, the 'dove and love' association is rumored to have arisen from a rash of interfamilial prostitution, as females found no other way to support themselves.

Pigeons' social class was finally given a chance to improve in WW2. While most birds enlisted in the airforce, pigeons' skill as messangers was adapted, and they soon became a vital part of Allied support of the Ressistance movement in France. Of particular note was decorated war hero Valiant and his Squad F, who flew across the Channel to deliver vital information about changing enemy positions while fighting off the ruthless General Von Talon and his brigade of enemy falcons. Ironically, the baby-boom after the war led to the massive British pigeon population problem today. Some claim pigeons, who are stereotypically percieved as wandering about the country doing nothing, are the sole cause of the 'benifits Britain' crisis the country faces today.

The airforce itself utilised a range of flight formations, that incorperated everything from the famous Brazillian synchronised dancing to the Crane form of kung-fu, designing thier 'walls of feathers' to disorient fighter pilots. Fishing gulls became instrumental in diving for and spotting U-Boats of the coast of Europe. Occupying forces often had bird flocks patrol at night in huge, interconnected formations, so as to create large, intimidating sillouettes and discourage resistance. This tactic was often turned against the enforcers, however; 'splash-damage' weapons like molitov cocktails became popular ways of wounding large numbers of birds at once.

Many tradditionalists were wholly opposed to gettting involved in a 'land-dweller' war at all, but many mammals argued it was thier duty, seing as how Hitler himself was an eagle. The birds have since disowned him as a "flightless, nestless blunt-beak who couldn't have the sky so decided to squabble in the dirt". They also took issue with sending troops out against mammals in aeroplanes (paramount to going over the top to meet machine gun fire in WW1), and the 'industiaisation' of flight formation, considered a sacred art form. By the end of the war, bird morale was distinctly against both mammals and indstrialisation as a whole.

In the Renaissance Carribean, birds were envied for thier inate ability to travel great distances and escape the islands many mammals felt trapped on. They acted as traders, taking great, swooping arcs around the island chain, picking up goods and news as they went. They became renowned storytellers and gained much praise for thier melodic sea shanties.

When pirates began to plague those waters in greater numbers, nobles would pay a handsome fee to have a bird flock transport thier treasure instead of a sinkable boat. The pirates adapted, however, and many a relic sailship is still equiped with wing-tearing harpoons and imobilising net guns, designed to bring down entire flocks. Some birds betrayed thier bretheren and joined the pirate crews, becoming lookouts (hence the name 'crow's nest') or 'lures' to draw in targets for ambush. Those that did were considered below dirt.

In Mexico many birds became bandits to survive the harsh comditions; it was here we saw the stereotype of the untrustworthy, scavanging vulture first appear.

Further north, in America itself, the Native American hawks, ravens, bluejays and eagles were all but wiped out by colonialists, and in clashes with rangers and thier horse partners. Native American birds were considered especially violent and 'savage' by mammals. More supersticious folk believed the tales of the legendary Thunderbird, and that whenever it began to storm it meant the birds were stirring up trouble. Other tradditions just seemed alien; as one account put it:

 _"They wear the feathers of thier dead in headdresses. And the feathers of those they've killed. Who does that? It's like me making a coat out of old Pop-pop's skin, or wearing the teeth of every mamal I ever killed round my neck. Decent folk just don't do stuff like that. 'S not natural."_

The Native American culture was, in fact, deeply routed in spirituality and the essence of the world; as a culture designed to never set down roots, the anscestor headreesses were a way of never forgetting where you'd come from, and where you'd been. The modern equivalent would be a family photo album. As for the 'war-dresses' made from the feathers of a warrior's fallen foes, they acted as a reminder of the lives they had taken. In the Native Americans' spiritual culture, killing was seen as a last resort, not to be saught after. Those that killed maliciously and without just cause were branded with a crow's feather. Crows and other carrion eaters were considered the lowest of the low in Native American culture, soulless, consuming the empty husks of the departed dead.

The penguin colonies of the South Pole were only discovered circa the late 19th century, due to thier flightlessness. Living in packed-ice igloos and removed from the rest of society, penguins had learned to communicate through a complex set of foot taps that resembled dance. It was the linguistic pioneer Mumble who traveled to the mainland to plead with mamalkind to stop 'stealing' the penguin's food supply of fish. Mumble was discovered half-dead on fishing rig. Assumed mute, Mumble was taken to a then-still-legal Zoo, where scientists studied him avidly. It wasn't until the media got hold of the story some three months later that he was finally released and communication began. Mumble led a team of explorers to his colony where first contact was made, teaching his kin some basic morse code phrases.

Over the next fifty years there was an influx of penguin immigrants lured by the promise of warmth. They were greatly prized as dancers. In an ironic coincidence, the most complex language forms a penguin can master are swear words (ensuring children wouldn't be able to use them in conversation). Many a dancer joked theirs was the best job in the world, because it was the only one where the audience loved you the more you told them what f*cking d*ckheads they all were.

Alas, by the time the sixties rolled around the penguins began ousting mammalian settlers from the South Pole, as a way to try and discourage climate change melting the ice-caps. At the time the Interfamilial Congress thought the excuse "ridiculous fear mongering", but in recent years, as more scientific evidence supporting the theory has emerged, they've begun reaching back out to the colonies with offers of Climate-Control technology of the like used in Zootopia's own Tundra Town.

The most famous bird flocks are based in Brazil, and consist largely of bright, exotic parrots. They endured prehaps the worst abuse of any avians, highly prised as slaves and performers. As a result, the now famous martial art capoeira was born during these times of slavery (about the 16th century) as a method of self defence. Birds are famous for thier wild, untameable free spirits, and they created the fighting style to liberate themselves from the discrimination of thier mammalian captors. Diguised as a form of dance and performed in circles ('rodas') to the accompaniment of music, capoeria incorperates fluid acrobatic play and extensive use of feints, sweeps and beak jabs. Former captive slaves banded together into 'quilombos', the basis of modern day flocks, and continued to free slaves, leading attacks against the occupying mammals.

Brazil has since become the jewel of avian culture, Rio thier alternative to Zootopia, famous now for its breathtaking annual Carnival.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to all this. During the 20th century, as immigration became more and more common and forgien powers became interested in Brazil, the infamous Brazillian cartels began hiring capoeria fighters as muscle. Most of this muscle consisted of birds abandoned by thier flocks for crimes committed. The gradual escalation of tension (including the introduction of hidden 'feather blades') between the cartels led to an explosion of violence in the 1970s Cartel Wars.

The battlegrounds for the fighting were the favellas, Brazil's other dirty secret. Whenever a bird flock settles down somewhere they construct a kind of 'nest city' in which they live for some months before dismantling and moving on. This process is extremely contriversial among other Famlies; some see thier flowing, working-with-nature style as a marvel of engineering that makes birds much sought after as architects for modern, eco friendly building projects. Others proclaim it a waste of valuable resources and brand the birds, forever complaining about deforestation, hypocrites.

Regardless, whenever the flock has moved on the scavengers arrive. Brazil's class divide is world-famous, and provides no shortage of needy and desperate animals to use these materials to build makshift cities of thier own. Nowdays birds tend to settle near major cities, as apposed to the traditional rainforest locations (partly due to deforestation, partly due to the lure of modern amenities), so favellas spring up and attach themselves to the same cities, like unofficial extra districts or 'economic parasites'. Unfortunately, the used, second hand nature of the construction materials and lack of financial resources lead to shoddy, delapidated structures likely to collapse at any moment - which they have, frequently, causing uncounted deaths.

The escalating violence at home prompted many birds to emmigrate to greener pastures, where they were met with nothing but hostility and suspiscion by a world seeing their 'true colours' for the first time. Once again, the Interfamilial Congress stepped in, declaring a state of martial law and since implimenting a wide range of social reforms in an attempt to combat the rampant poverty. These policies have been met with varying degrees of success and support; many officials lament that birds are more difficult to control than mammals and reptiles combined. The core problem is that birds, by design, it seems, do not want to be controlled. The power of the individual stands at the very heart of everything from their political system to thier art.

Nevertheless, many birds have since intergrated themselves fuly into our society, preferring its rooted, reliable nature to the less predictable ways of thier kin. The problem of culture clash has been surprisingly minimal with these isolated, forward-thinking individuals. Bird culture is much more relaxed than mammals when it comes to species mingling in general (look no further than the Native American legend of Raven and his Goose wife).

 **A/N: So I'm sure you caught the Happy Feet and Valliant Refrences. I decided not to break this one up; was that a good idea? I would love some reviews just suggesting ideas you guys have about the larger world of Zootopia, it's one of the film's most fascinating aspects. I'd like to add any brilliant ideas. Thanks for reading, and if you're intersted in seeing more, please check out my other story, Damn Tourists!**


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